One of my favorite actors is Elliott Gould. He was the man in the early 70's. Time magazine even placed him on one of its covers calling him a "Star For An Uptight Age"...whatever that means. But Elliott's career slowed down after a series of critical and commercial flops in the mid-to-late 1970s – flops in the Hollywood industry sense...not the Franklin Mint sense. 
Though he remained steadily employed past the 70's, Elliott mostly starred in low budget films and televison, playing supporting and character roles. One of his most famous being a recurring guest role on Friends as Jack Geller, the father of Monica and Ross Geller.
Below are my personal Top 10 Elliott Gould Films. Now I know many of you will get bent out of shape when you notice M*A*S*H didn't make the cut. But let me explain... I love M*A*S*H and I'm a huge Robert Altman fan, but M*A*S*H was really a Donald Sutherland film. If you dissect the movie you'll realize that Elliott's only in about 20% of it. He was so good it only feels like more. Alright, enough defending. One more thing before I start the list... A couple of posts back I informed you that the Franklin Mint Blog YouTube page was removed due to copyright infringement. But isn't most of YouTube infringed copyrighted material? Why me? So now most of my video links are dead...which sucks. But I recently started a new YouTube page and perhaps a new way to beat the system. For now on when I upload a video to YouTube I'm leaving all the fields blank – no tags or info. This means a copyright holding company can't search for it. It also means the average person can't search for it. So it'll be exclusively for this blog only. Not sure if it'll work but we'll give it a try. (I may or may not go back and upload all the videos that were removed.)
Here we go...My Top 10 Elliott Gould Films...
1- Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) After one liberal group therapy session, Bob (Robert Culp) and his wife, Carol (Natalie Wood), are convinced they're open-minded enough to embrace a no-guilt approach to fidelity. The newly enlightened couple chastise their closest friends, Ted (Elliott Gould) and Alice (Dyan Cannon), for not coming to grips with their true feelings. The foursome each examine their feelings, and admittedly their thoughts toward their individual relationships with each other and decide to test what they consider their new enlightened state...with a foursome.
2- The Long Goodbye (1973)Chain-smoking, wisecracking private eye Philip Marlowe (Gould) drives a buddy from LA to the Tijuana border and returns home to an apartment full of cops who arrest him for abetting the murder of his friend's wife. After Marlowe's release, he hears his friend committed suicide, a beautiful woman hires him to locate her alcoholic and mercurial husband, and the mob try to shake him down for some money. Marlowe eventually realizes that these events are all connected.
3- Move (1970) Hiram Jaffe (Gould), a young playwright who writes porno novels to overcome a writer's block, lives the fantasies of one of his books, while trying to move with his wife from one apartment into a larger one. From the beginning this movie makes aware that what you see may not be real, it may all be in the head of the Hiram. That's the only way this movie can make sense – it gets pretty experimental at times...which I like.
4- I Love My...Wife (1970)A young surgeon, Dr. Richard Burrows (Gould), becomes bored with his wife and family, he has a very successful career, but even with having so much in life, he feels empty and goes through a series of brief and meaningless relations with attractive women.
5- Little Murders (1971)A girl brings home her latest boyfriend (Gould) to meet her parents. This is done against the background of random shootings that had just begun in NYC at the time the play was written. How the family's failings are magnified by the social confusion of the times is the crux of the plot. Like MOVE, LITTLE MURDERS is another head trip of a movie.
6- I Will, I Will... for Now (1976)Les Bingham (Elliott Gould) and Katie Bingham (Diane Keaton) are a sexually mismatched separated couple. The two attempt to give it another try by spicing up their flagging love life with some unconventional and wacky methods – much to the chagrin of Les' lawyer, Lou Springer (Paul Sorvino), who's been having an affair with Katie behind Les' back.
7- California Split (1974)Bill Denny (George Segal) and Charlie Walters (Elliot Gould) are two compulsive gamblers with nothing in common except incredibly bad luck. But after a chance meeting in a Los Angeles card parlor, they find that they make an unbeatable team. Embarking on a once-in-a-lifetime winning streak, Bill and Charlie bet their way to the plush casino tables of Reno, where they risk it all in a "friendly" little poker game with the reigning world champion
8- S*P*Y*S (1974)Griff (Elliott Gould) and Bruland (Donald Sutherland) are two inept secret agents targeted by the KGB when the CIA kills two Soviet operatives. Little do the Russians know, Griff and Bruland don't exactly rank high on the CIA's list of most valued employees. Soon, the hopelessly incompetent duo find themselves pursued not only by the Russkies but by their own agency as well.
9- Getting Straight (1970)Shortly after completing his tour of duty in Vietnam, disillusioned Army vet Harry Bailey (Elliott Gould) returns to college to complete his education and finds himself in the center of a battle between the rebellious student body and the straight-laced faculty.
10- Busting (1974)LA cops, Detective Michael Keneely (Elliott Gould) and Detective Patrick Farrel (Robert Blake) get in over their heads when they don't heed orders from above and go after a big crime boss. While higher ups in the police department want the cop duo to just focus on nabbing petty criminals, the team does so while still going after LA kingpin Rizzo.
